All the World's a Garden
by Metronome I Hear
Summary: In which there has always been more to magic than wizards believe. (Open your eyes, can't you see?) Sometimes, this does nothing. (Sweet little toy soldiers, all lined up straight) Other times, this changes things. (A spark, a fire, a roaring flame) Accepting Prompts.
1. Chrysanthemum

**Chrysanthemums** are frequently included in arrangements for funeral services. In some European countries, such as France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary and Croatia, chrysanthemums are **symbolic of death** and are only used for funerals or on graves. In China, Japan and Korea, white chrysanthemums are **symbolic of lamentation and grief** , whereas in the US, it **symbolizes truth** and the flower is usually regarded as **positive and cheerful** , with New Orleans as a notable exception.

* * *

Something people fail to realize ( _be they magical, murderful, beautiful, wonderful, terrible or mundane_ ) is that reality is subjective.

There are rules to reality! ...But all rules are meant to be broken. Everything can be interpreted in its own way and the world is just a little different to each passing person who views it. And beyond the physical realm there are beings, great and terrible and beings, that are not real and yet exist despite this. They exist in a state of what a person might call immortal, ever shifting and changing, yet forever staying the same. They are not beings meant to be viewed by eyes of the physical realm, by people who believe in the set rules when it has none.

Harry James Potter understands this very well.

He knows because when he was little ( _Or was it old? Time is such a pesky thing, you can never quite count on it, always changing as it does_ ) he came along with the Dursleys to London.

( _In another world, he would have been left with Arabella Figg. But she was down sick with a terrible flu and couldn't be bothered with taking care of a small raggedy child wearing too big clothing over too small bones. So in this world he came along with them-)_

 _(And that changed everything_ )

He was told to stay close behind them and Harry tried very hard not to fall behind. He didn't really want to suffer through the lack of food and possibly even a beating should he fail to stay close. However, the crowds were especially thick that day and he was such a tiny child, so small and fragile and easily lost in the mass of adult bodies all around him. Quickly, he lost sight of the Dursleys, and they certainly never noticed it when their nephew disappeared from where he trailed behind them.

Harry was well and truly lost. Knowing this, no matter how young he was at the time ( _6? 200? 7? 5,000? Does it even matter?_ ) he went to the side of the crowd near the stores and intended to wait there until someone noticed he was gone and called for him or a nice officer wandered by and he could ask to be taken back.

Everything would have just worked out fine had he stuck to that plan. But little Harry was an ever so curious little thing, something that the Dursleys hadn't quite managed to beat out of him just yet, and he could have sworn he had seen something gimmer down the alleyway. He followed it and turned a corner.

Then the world decided it was a good time to disappear.

He didn't scream. Harry wasn't really the screaming sort. Instead he stared wide eyed at his surroundings, or lack thereof, and gaped. The world had turned into a swath of writhing shadows, small smoky strands working their ways across the floor-or what would have been the floor had there been one. Harry turned to look behind him and found more of the same. London had disappeared entirely, along with the ground under his feet ( _despite the fact he was still standing_ ) and the blue grey sky that had once hung above him.

Harry didn't have an explanation for this. He was still very young at the time ( _Only 20 million- 4 hundred- negative 53- years seconds days hours_ ) so he didn't know any of the rules or laws or regulations or whatever you'd like to name them, ( _Be that long winding unnecessary names or short sweet cries of howling rage and happiness and or confusing precise forever definitive words to describe what shouldn't be named and must be named and-oh dear I've gotten off track again_ ) and he didn't know what to do upon arriving, either, so he took a step forward and started walking.

A long, long, long time later ( _Or perhaps it was short? I've never liked time, you know, far too fickle for my liking. You can never tell when it's going fast or slow or backwards or sideways into the next dimension. Is there a next dimension? Yes, yes, there is. I'm sure of it! For if enough people believe it, then surely it must be true?_ ) he came to a stone step path. He wasn't sure where it lead, or how it was even possible for such a thing to exist in such a place as the one he was now ( _before? In the future?_ ) but he saw it and decided to follow it and see where it lead.

It lead to a river, or what seemed to be a river. The water glowered and shifted and swirled and appeared to be a living breathing thing. And above the river stood a bridge and on the bridge stood four people.

( _Or was it three?_ )

"A guest has arrived!" One figure announced, the one who stood before the other three at the end of the bridge. They wore a cloak and beneath it they seemed to be changing. They were old, withered and frail one moment, and youthful and beautiful the next. Both male and female and neither and both and-now Harry was giving himself a headache.

The other three ( _They look so similar, or perhaps they didn't. Everything is subjective, remember? Perhaps they only looked similar because you perceived them to be similar and perhaps they were similar because they chose to be similar and perhaps they are not similar at all_ ) turned to look at Harry and Harry thought they were perhaps something like brothers.

( _There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across... However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water_ )

The brothers all turned to look at Harry and Harry thought to himself that maybe he should have stayed out of the alleyway. But they payed him no real mind and turned back to the hooded figure with little fuss and no greeting at all.

Harry watched as the figure handed an item to each of the brothers and then as the brothers walked off, tragedy nipping at their heels and heads held high.

"The Peverells," a voice told Harry, speaking in many layers so that it sounded as if a great number of people all spoke at once,"were both foolish and wise. Remember this scene, little one, for one day you will see it again."

"Will I?" Harry looked up at the looming shifting figure called Death. He was calm in their presence, no matter how much many would think the contrary should be true.

"You will indeed, Green Eyes," Death told him, "Now run along and remember to never give anyone your name. Try to avoid the Courts, especially those attended by the mad, and have as much fun as you'd like. We'll meet again one day, but I'd prefer for that to be a while away just yet."

Death disappeared and Harry was left alone at the river filled with tiny glowing bugs and fish, the likes of which scattered the further away from the bridge they went. Harry stared at the spot that they had been, and then wandered across the bridge and kept going.

It wasn't until the sun had risen and set in the physical realm ( _for this was not the realm of the physical, of that anyone can be certain_ ) that Harry Potter's body disappeared and he became a resident of the strange twisted realm that showed people for what they were and twisted reality and knotted Fate's crisscrossing strings. And upon losing ( _gaining?_ ) his life he came to know the realm he was in ( _just as all others who had wandered onto the path before him had_ ) and wondered off to join the rest of the faeries ( _ghosts spirits monsters demons angels gods beings ancients giants entities. They had no real name, there was no need to name such a thing that was real and not. To do so was foolishness and best left to the mortals who dwelled on solid land_ ) in their constant festivals and games.

The thing that was once Harry was unsurprised when they found the spirit of what had once been an owl carrying the remnants of an invitation addressed to who they had once been however long it had been later.

( _"Dear Mr. Potter," it read, sweet words and wandering summons, "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."_ )

 **AN: So. I wrote this forever and an age ago, posted it on Tumblr, and promptly forgot about it. Then, Araceil's story " _Against my Nature_ " dragged me kicking and screaming back into the Harry Potter fandom, and the rain in my area put me in a melancholy mood, and the universe aligned in just the right way so I would find this among my old documents and get inspired. I am now turning this into a series of Oneshots/drabbles. Feel free to send in prompts!**


	2. The Wasteland

_What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow_

 _Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,_

 _You cannot say, or guess, for you know only_

 _A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,_

 _And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,_

 _And the dry stone no sound of water._

 _~T. S. Elliot_

She who speaks of moon rabbits and Other beings, the strange beings, ( _from behind the cracks in the wall and beyond the corners we never turn_ ) and can never quite understand how everyone else sees the world ( _they don't_ ) sits under an apple tree, holding an apple leaf, and wonders.

She's covered in soot from head to toe. Her clothing is ruffled, burnt, and torn. Her hair's a mess and her shoes are mysteriously missing. Tears have streamed down her face, blood dripped sluggishly from scratches, and her skin turned black and blue under its earthly blanket.

"What is this thing called grief?" She speaks to herself out loud, knowing ( _understanding, unlike so many others_ ) that They are always listening.

"I don't know," Grief tells her, draping theirself across Luna's back and resting their head on her shoulder. They are a warm presence against her back, but only so because she believes in the power of melancholy.

( _Dear Keats, who claims grief lives in the house of pleasure. You were right_ )

"Isn't that rather strange?" Luna muses, turning her gaze skyward. Wrackspurts buzz around her ears and her earrings keep her safe from fuzzy thoughts and a knife to her wrist. ( _In another world, in another life, in another timeline with so little changed and so much changed and-_ ) "You'd think that you'd know what you are."

Grief hummed, reaching out with fingers of bone ( _decorated with flowers, so pretty_ ) to grasp the leaf within her hold. It decayed under their touch, like it was Death draped across her back and not Grief as she believed it so. Perhaps it was Death at her back, and not Grief, and she was merely mistaking what she saw. But no-she saw Grief, and thus it was Grief, for was there really any other way to know?

"Mother is dead." Luna's voice was soft as she spoke, whispers joining the unseen wind. ( _Would someone hear her? Miles and miles away, would they hear the echo of her words?_ )

"I know," Grief said, the leaf crumbling to dust. It coated her hands and smeared across her skin-but more paint on the canvas of her body.

( _She was a painting not yet painted, a masterpiece laying under layers of cloth and dust. Where oh where did the painter go? She had lost him so long ago_ )

"What do I do?" Her eyes felt wet as she laced her fingers with those of Grief's. They were a quiet companion in her melancholy, a stranger on a train ride to oblivion. Would they stay with her for as long as she clung? If she never let go would the memory of her mother never leave? Luna didn't know, just as she didn't know a great number of things for she was young yet, ( _so terribly old_ ) and still needed to be told things by adults who knew better. ( _They didn't_ )

( _Like Heliopaths in Sweden singing of madness and order. Like Nargles in Hogwarts causing chaos with every word. Would she meet that being called Chaos one day? The one who had so loved the thing called Death?_ )

"I don't know," Grief said, gripping her hand just a little bit tighter. Insects crawled along their skin, butterflies eating their flesh with brilliant color.

"Will it ever get easier?" Luna questioned.

"I've been told time heals all wounds, my dear. Though I know not if it is true," Grief answered.

"Because time doesn't flow for you. Not since you stopped being human."

( _Madness crept up to him, a noose around his neck. Victory had been within reach and yet-_ )

The wind picked up and blew across the hill, shaking the leaves and shattering the quiet silence in the air. It crescendoed like magic was known to do, loud and boisterous and almost… lonely. The purveyor of imagination, the beloved of the Court of Madness-governors of creativity-was it so lonely to travel the land alone? Perhaps Luna should be its friend.

"Luna?" A voice, so familiar, it called to her and the wind carried his voice to her ears. "Luna?"

The speaker of moon rabbits stood and brushed off her skirt, torn and dirty as it was. "I'm here, Daddy!"

The moment was gone, her tears were dried up, and Grief remained draped across her back. Her father found her and brought her home, treated her wounds and calmed her down. ( _But Luna was already calm, she had always been calm, so why did he believe otherwise?_ ) Mother was dead and Luna was there when she left, following Death's gentle hand to somewhere beyond her body. But Luna was okay, despite her scratches and her bruises, because she had Grief on her back and the wind for a friend.

Her mother was dead, but Luna would be alright.

 _There is shadow under this red rock,_

 _(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),_

 _And I will show you something different from either_

 _Your shadow at morning striding behind you_

 _Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_

 _I will show you fear in a handful of dust._

 _~T.S. Elliot_

 **AN: This, if you couldn't tell, takes place directly after the accident that kills Luna's mother. This chapter was inspired by the fact that everyone keeps comparing Tsuna from my story "There are Stars in Your Eyes" to Luna. So, in the spirit of irony, I have made Luna like Tsuna. Kinda. Also, the quotes are both from the poem "The Wasteland". It was also one of the things inspiring this chapter. Prompts anyone?**


	3. Daffodil a Single Bloom

The March birth flower and the 10th wedding anniversary flower, a gift of daffodils is said to ensure happiness. But **always remember to present daffodils in a bunch** – the same legends that associate this cheerful flower with good fortune warn us that **when given as a single bloom** , a daffodil can **foretell misfortune**.

* * *

Tom often stole books. He… hoarded them, in a way. Devoured them the moment he could understand the words written upon the page. Some books were… frivolous. Indulgent. Mere tales meant to entertain the mind-young and old alike-that Tom only read because tales like these-myths, legends, _religion_ -played such a large role in the lives of the people around him. Other books were purely academic. History was to be learned from so it wasn't repeated. Psychology was to be studied as to understand the way the psyche worked. Language, mathematics, economics, science…

( _The world was born from nothing, in an explosion of bright light-or was it water? Great oceans wavering willing wallowing and filling up all the space_ )

Tom read things for a purpose, even works which seemed worthless at first glance. Poetry, stories, the written word… Sometimes it- resonated? within him, for lack of a better phrase. Some words struck him like lightning, and if they could affect him, who was to say what they could do to someone else? To someone… Ordinary.

( _Stardust swirling and swarmed, gathering in the Hall of Stars-scattering shattering_ _ **screaming**_ _something was wrong wrong wrong_ )

There was something interesting in the way books were written. Even in essays of scholars, written impersonally so as to not sway the reader, there was always a… mark, so to speak. An imprint of the writer that could be seen in between the ink on the page. It was most prominent in the hand written works Tom had read. He could see the emotions of the author play out in the way the writing slanted when they hurried to get ideas out, or the words darkened when they were angry and pressed the pen too hard on the page.

( _Imprints, like ghosts, lingering on the page. Dear Mythos, keeper of stories, collector of tales. Don't you enjoy it so?_ )

He thumbed through the book in his lap, the one bought at the wizarding shop. The first of the many he had acquired. Second hand-covered in notes and diagrams written in by whoever had owned it last ( _Well kept the book was-Studious the student was_ ) It was about basic magical theory-not on the list of recommended books, perhaps, but it had caught his eye.

"What is magic?" Tom wondered aloud, voice soft, curious, and with an edge of something he vaguely recognized as _wonder_. He traced the lines on the page, fancying that he could feel the hand of the person who had written it, hear the scratching of the quill just beyond his hearing range… It was a silly idea, best left to day dreamers and the average man, but Tom couldn't help but think it, to chase after the idea.

The door to the compartment slid open, and with it a chill ran down Tom's spine. ( _Shivering graveyards, age old bones. What manner of being, what kind of monster?_ ) His eyes traced the figure who stood at the doorway, an eleven year old child, and watched to see what kind of move they would make.

They walked like they were dancing in a silent room, ( _dust drifting through the air, sunlight streamed through windows, quiet creaks and-_ ) quietly, wistfully, full of out of reach dreams. They sat down across from Tom, green eyes flashing ( _deranged smile widening_ ) and leaned back against the seats.

( _Crick._ _ **Crack**_ _. Snap. Shatter_ )

Their hair was a wild black, dark as the void. Their eyes were green, ( _so very, very green_ ) and their skin pale as death.

( _Ring-a-Ring o'Rosies, A Pocketful of Posies. "A-tishoo! A-tishoo!" We all fall Down!_ )

They sat in quiet silence until the train began to move towards a land of magic Tom had never seen before. What would it be like? What would it feel like? ( _The crackle of magic just under his skin-static roaring, a rhythm being had-The music of magic forever being played_ ) What could he gain from it?

( _The world at his fingertips, victory seconds away. So long he had waited, so far he had come. At the end of his journey, the first steps to eternity-_ )

"Who are you?" The one sitting across him asked, eyes glittering like the void.

"Tom Riddle." The words sounded flat. There was something off about the person across from him, something not quite… There.

(" _I had a dream, Which was not all the dream._

 _The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars_

 _Did wander darkling into the eternal space"_ )

They hummed, eyes roaming Tom's form. Their gaze was sharp, lazy, _cold_. They stared through him, into him, beyond him into something… else.

( _The grips of dread wrapped around his neck, a noose tightening tightening tightening further until he-_ )

"And yours?" Tom prompted when the other said nothing for several heavy moments. The world outside the window flashed by too fast to comprehend, and there was something about this moment that made it seem as if they-them two, ( _good friends, better enemies_ ) two strangers-were entirely alone in the world.

"My what?" They questioned, raising a brow. Something swirled behind their eyes-dark, deadly, dangerous. ( _Tom choked_ )

"Your name," Tom drawled, irritation bubbling up from within.

They blinked, almost owlishly, and tilted their head to one side. They smiled, seemingly amused, and spoke. "Who knows?"

Tom frowned, his eye twitched. Who was this brat? Did they really not know their own name? Or were they being frustrating on purpose? How _irritating_.

But something stopped Tom from lashing out. Something other than gaining a reputation so soon before his arrival at Hogwarts. There was something about this person that stayed his hand. So, he kept quiet, and held his tongue.

The other did not speak anymore during the ride. Tom went back to his books, studying the ink on their pages, and the one who sat across from him gazed out the window at the world passing them by. When they arrived at their destination, they went their separate ways.

Tom never saw them at the sorting.

( _Onwards, Death went to Hogwarts_ )

 **AN: I'm going to warn you now, things are going to be pretty confusing at times. Time is not consistent, and neither is space for that matter. Things will constantly change and shift and a lot of these stories are going to be out of order. This chapter was inspired by The Carnivorous Muffin's story "October". The poem was a excerpt from the poem "Darkness" by Lord Byron. "Ring-a-Ring o'Rosies" is what a number of scholars believe is the original version of "Ring around the Rosy". Prompts anyone?**


	4. Hidden Groves

_I heard a thousand blended notes,_

 _While in a grove I sate reclined,_

 _In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts_

 _Bring sad thoughts to mind._

Under a tree, they lay-just the two of them ( _two people, isolated genius, ignored for want of a world so different from their own_ ) and no other. Albus, sweet Albus Dumbledore, held a book in his hands ( _careful careful_ ) and looked at the words as if they held the secrets of the universe. ( _Wonder was it that they might find those secrets among cream colored pages and long dried black ink and elegant swirling lines_ ) But Gellert Grindelwald knows-with a certainty he, perhaps, shouldn't have-that Albus' attention has never once wandered from where Gellert lazed beside him.

( _The leaves are beautiful, green and yellow in color, flowers white and pretty sprouting wherever they may. The light of the afternoon filters through the leaves, leaving ever shifting patterns on their skin_ )

They are powerful, ( _like an untamed storm_ ) the two of them. So strong, ( _lightning flashing, rain is roaring_ ) with magic flooding their veins like blood, and crackling just under their skin. If they chose so-and they would, perhaps ( _one day soon_ )-they could bring the whole of Britain-no. They could fell _the world_ , bring its entirety to its knees; such power is at their fingertips.

Gellert knows this, knows it with a certainty few things provide him, knows it as an ache in his bones, an absolute in his mind, and _oh_ , how he _**wants**_.

( _And houses fell and buildings burned and crops soaked up the water_ )

Albus' gaze is ever present and comforting, a familiar pair of eyes that Gellert relishes in having them on him. ( _They're a pair, those two, he and him, two sides of the same coin_ ) He knows, a smirk curling his lips, exactly what Albus craves, exactly what Albus wants. Gellert could give it to him, if only he would ask. Oh, the things Gellert could show him if only he would-

If only he would-

If only-

( _What might happen should they fall over the edge? Should their wings of feathered wax catch them, carry them higher and higher and higher, until they melt and their bodies fall and fall and fall deep down into the Abyss?_ )

Gellert reaches out with his magic-crimson today ( _brighter than blood and darker than fire_ )-and lets it mingle with the wind, directing it to his every whim. It picks up petals and fallen leaves, the first for when autumn comes to call ( _when the world starts to rest_ ) around him, swirling them in the air in a choreographed dance. It is almost autumn ( _the time of dying dying dying_ )-Gellert's favorite time of year-and having the world dance like marionettes putting on a play is…

 _It's beautiful_ , Gellert thinks, shivering when power sparked beneath his hands, every movement, every twist, sending a thrill down his spine.

( _Sweet Mythos, help me write this down, this tale for the ages_ )

Albus isn't looking at the book anymore, no more pretense of fascination, of distraction. He's watching the wind, the leaves, the flowers, the dance, but most importantly he's watching _Gellert_ with undisguised appreciation. _(reverence-like a pilgrim before their god, a knight before their king, a lover before their-but doesn't Albus realize it? The truth just before his eyes. Gellert looks and he respects him, wants him, his friend, his confidant, his-_ )

There is a spark in his eyes, in Albus' gaze when they settle on him. Those eyes-Gellert watches from the corner of his own ( _a spark, Chaos says, a fire and flame_ )-they hold something resembling love there, something brilliant, something beautiful, something beloved, something precious.

Albus _loves_ Gellert and Gellert-

Well.

One day they'll conquer the world, and they'll be able to do anything they wish. They'll bring about a new age ( _they're revolutionaries, didn't you know?_ ) where Wizards needn't hide who they are, where Muggles don't pollute the soil, the land, with their filth-their mistakes ( _for muggles are a danger to themselves and those around them, those simple people who need a guiding hand_ ), where Albus and Gellert are _free_ in a way they can never be as things are the way they are.

"Albus?" The name rolls off Gellert's tongue, tasting like honeyed chocolate and sweet promises. So great they could be, so wonderful, so-

( _They were young yet-just children, still growing, in the eyes of the people-just infants, still crying, in the eyes of the World_ )

He let the wind die down, feeling more tired than before, the wandless magic having sapped his strength, however little it may have taken. A hand is intertwined with his own, long fingers wrapping their way around each other. Albus stares at him and smiles. "Nothing, Gellert. Just thinking"

( _Gellert had never thought he would find an equal, someone who could match him-_ _outpace him_ _-and he has never been happier that he had been expelled_ )

Gellert squeezes Albus's hand and turns back to the sky, watching clouds laze across the blue. For the Greater Good, he thought, For the Greater Good, they would see that the world be a better place.

Together.

( _In Numenguard, he lay-just him and no other. There he stays still his last breath is drawn, before he greets Death whom he has chased for so long. There he lay and there he laughed and laughed and laughed and there he shall remain_ )

(" _For the Greater Good, indeed," Chaos mused-regretful, wistful, and pained. "For the Greater Good."_ )

 _In her fair works did Nature link_

 _The human soul that through me ran;_

 _And much it grieved my heart to think_

 _What man has made of man._

 _~William Wordsworth_

 **An: Takes place during the summer Gellert met Albus. The poem at the beginning and end of the chapter is from "Lines Written in Early Spring" by William Wordsworth.**

 **Sorry for the slow updates. I have plenty of ideas for chapters (one featuring a certain pair of twins comes to mind), but nothing seems to want to be finished. Also, note that all beings in the Other that are mentioned (Death, Grief, Chaos, Mythos, the Monarch, etc.) were HP characters once. Have fun figuring out who's who.**


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